I Miss Hoping to Understand Your Mixed Messages
by isthatacorner
Summary: Lily isn't happy. James isn't happy. The other three Marauders definitely aren't happy. Lily and James finally got together, so what the heck happened? Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: I Miss Hoping to Understand Your Mixed Messages**

**1/3**

**I Miss You**

Lily quickly looked around her on all sides, as if what she were about to say was of the utmost importance, and something entirely secret. In her mind, it was both. "I miss him." The words were barely louder than a whisper, but to her they seemed to bounce and echo from all around the room. "I was right. It sounds just as stupid out loud as when I say it in my head." That didn't prevent it from being true. Lily sat in one of the squishy arm chairs in the Head's common room with a sigh. Her eye automatically went to the closed dormitory door of the Headboy. James hadn't slept there in two months. Ever since….that night. And damn it all, she missed him. She had sworn to herself that she wouldn't. But at least, she reminded herself, it was better than the alternative. It could be her sitting in her old dorm with her girls sobbing her eyes out into a bucket of rocky road ice cream. Except that it would be worse for her. Everyone would know who she had been dumped by, this is Hogwarts after all, and instead of being sympathetic most would consider this her just deserts. No less than she deserved for turning him down for all of that time. Towards the middle of the year, someday immediately following the Winter Holidays Lily Evans had swallowed an impressive amount of pride and agreed to go out with James Potter. She hadn't even been aware of liking him, she had not even realized how much she talked about him until Alice dragged him to her in between classes at wand point and ordered him to ask her on a date. She may have even continued to say no if another of their friends hadn't been pressing a wand of their own into Lily's back. She said yes.

So, Lily Evans dated James Potter. The world didn't come to an end. Voldemort didn't manage to put an imperious curse on the Minister of Magic. Hogwarts hadn't fallen apart. Non-magical pigs could still not fly, and while it was cold outside, Hell had indeed not frozen over. She had never had a better time in her life. The Marauders, whom she used to look down on with such disdain, hating them and their childish antics made her laugh until her sides ached and tears rolled from her eyes with those same antics she had once scorned. She had lost about 10 pounds in the month that she dated James Potter. She couldn't eat at meal times for the laughing, but she had averaged that out by gaining maybe 15. Those boys had more candy and junk food than she had ever seen. Things had been perfect, or so she had thought. Kissing James Potter was, well, amazing is too cheesy of a word to even be considered but it is the only one that fits. But that wasn't her favorite part of being his girlfriend. It was being his friend. Finally having him talk to her the way that he spoke to his friends. The way he looked at her. Sitting on the couch next to him and knowing that if she wanted to she could just fall back and he would catch her. When he stroked her hair, her back would tingle. She missed him.

Then why did she break up with him? Is the question that anyone would ask if they could hear her thoughts. If Lily missed James so much, why was she sitting alone in the Heads tower while he had moved back into Gryffindor with Sirius, Peter and Remus. Why wasn't he sitting next to her waiting for her to fall back on him? The reason was simple. While Lily could swallow enough of her pride to agree to the school at large that maybe she was wrong, maybe James Potter deserved a chance, that portion of pride on a plate was just a bit too big to allow for being dumped by James Potter. Lily knew the signs. She had seen them often enough to know the patterns of the Marauders. Two months ago they would get quiet whenever she came near. Sirius, Peter, and Remus would give her a look before getting up and leaving her with James. The four of them started hanging out more than ever in the year 7 boys dorms. They didn't laugh around her anymore. She was no longer part of their jokes. Remus, the only one that she had been friends with before she had begun dating James knew what was happening and the stress of betraying her was making him positively sick looking. She knew that James was about to break up with her. Knowing him, and knowing how awful she had treated him in the past she knew that he was intending on dumping her in the most fantastic, grandiose, humiliating way that he could possibly dream up. And everyone knows that James Potter has an outstanding imagination. So she stopped it. She did what she had been wanting to do since the first time she saw the Marauders get away with a prank, stop it before it could get out of hand.

He had been sitting at lunch when she approached. She tapped him on the shoulder and he stiffened. It used to be that her touch, the mere fact that she was willingly talking to him sent him into a state of rapture. He would waggle his eyebrow and ask her if she wanted to touch him some place else. She asked him if they could talk alone for a minute. He smiled and suggested that they went into the hall. She agreed. So, there, unnoticed in a corner near the entrance to the castle Lily Evans broke up with James Potter.

Tears fell slowly down Lily's face as she reminisced over her relationship with James She never thought that a day could arrive that would find her sitting in her pajamas crying because she missed James Potter. It was a little after 1:00 A.M. He was definitely not coming back to their shared tower this evening. He was staying yet again with the Marauders. Lily stood and slowly made her way to the door to his room. She let herself in and looked around. Even though he had been staying with his friends for the past few weeks, his room looked like he had just abandoned it yesterday. It smelled like him. She stepped over piles of clothes and candy wrappers. A picture of the two of them lay amidst its shattered frame near the stone wall across from his bed. Lily made her way towards the photo and looked at the happy couple it contained. It was taken shortly after they had started dating. After Lily had kissed him for the first time in front of their friends. James had given one loud, long hoot and swooped Lily into his arms. He kissed her one last time and surrounded by their friends, with no music whatsoever playing James pulled Lily into a dance. The dance is what the photo showed. James had his face pressed close to hers, and occasionally she would lean away from him and laugh. There was snow in her hair. It was hard to believe that that was four months ago. Barely. They looked so in love even though at that particular moment Lily wasn't aware of being in love with him. With the photo in her hands Lily made herself comfortable on James' bed. Soon, the photo pressed beneath her cheek she closed her eyes and drifted to sleep, surrounded by the unique smell that was James Potter.

**authors note: so. I did get this beta'd. The temp beta (Becky) is awesome. Me? Not so much. Yeah. I _think_ this is the beta'd version. I don't seem to have any other version on my computer and the email where she sent me the final version has gone missing. So, my fanfic loving chums I give you this…. Um. If you wanted to review or anything, has it all super easy with the just having to press the button and type the whatever. I was just mentioning that. Oh, and by the by, my other fic lily evans sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-o-t me! Has been doing really well, and not to be a review slut or anything but I really would like two more reviews for that and shortly thereafter (I'd go so far as to say within the week, beta and temperamental imagination permitting) I'd have the next linked oneshot. And if I get blocked, or my beta is busy within two weeks for sure. I just want there to be a reasonable amount of interest before I really do juggle it up to a priority setting. Thanks, yo. isa.**


	2. Chapter 2

An: I'm going to have to do some dedicating here. So pardon me while I gets to it. BECKS, who read this and read this and read this and freaking read it again like the trooper that she is.KRISTA who is the sole reason I have yet to run screaming into the night poking my eyes out because I need this posted asap and I cant do it myself. So she posted this for me. Cause she's awesome. I really don't think she can help it…and if she can…don't. don't help it. And more mad love for DP who fixed my paragraphing for me in I MISS YOU (otherwise known as ch 1) look at me all carrying on like I'm important and someone is going to read this…my conceit is amazing.

I can't tear my eyes away from the small box resting in the middle of my perfectly made (for once) bed. I hate that box. I want to pick it up and throw it as far from me as I can possibly get it. I just might. How can something so light cause so much trouble? I can't stop touching it, but I don't want to touch it at all. Every time I pick it up I toss it from hand-to-hand as if the box were on fire. It might as well be. I drop the box on my bed, and falling to my knees I let all the pain, hurt, and anger inside of me out in a long yell. The boys are concerned, I know, but I can't help it. I can barely help myself.

My hands are in my hair, yanking for all that they are worth. Its almost like, if I can just pull my hair hard enough, then eventually it will come out and my brain will be clinging to the roots. Then I won't know anything about anything. When I open my eyes, the ring isn't going to be there. It isn't, it can't be. Its going to be on Lily's finger where it should be and its going to turn out that these past few weeks have been nothing but a hellish dream. I open my eyes. The box is sitting to the left of the center of the bed where it landed staring at me innocently. I had it all planned out. For two damn months I had it all planned out. I worked so hard to make things perfect. To make the night a night she would never forget. Too much time was spent for things to end up the way that they had and I have no idea what to do. None. And neither do the other Marauders. For once not even the four us can come up with a solution. All I can do is cling to my sanity as best I can and try to get through each seventy-two hour day and all they can do is watch me fall apart.

Remus, Sirius, and Peter shifted uncomfortably on their beds. None of them really wanted to be there any longer, but they didn't want to leave James alone either. James had been upset over Lily before, there had hardly been a day in all of their years in Hogwarts that James hadn't been upset over Lily. But nothing like this. And to make matters worse the girl had disappeared. She had dumped James two weeks before and had promptly fallen off the face of the planet.

"How could we have been in such different places?" If I can hear the tears in my voice, I know my friends can too. I'm too tired to be embarrassed. "Here I was, first class chump, thinking marriage and she was thinking 'should I serve James his heart? On a platter with cabbage and peas or should I filet it nice and thin and serve it in a mixed greens salad?'

My instincts have never been so wrong!" I repeatedly slam my head against the castles stone floor. If I couldn't physically yank my brain out, then smashing it was the next best thing. My instincts. My instincts. I can't help but roll my eyes at the thought of them. I had always been able to trust them before. They are what makes me Quidditch gold. They are what always keeps me at least two steps ahead of Severus Snape, they were what told me that Lily would go just a bit further before she would smack me. Before and after we started dating.

"I need to talk to her. This has to be some sort of mistake. She loves me. She loves me as much as I love her, remember? She said it, right?" I can barely get the words out my throat feels so thick. I can hear my voice shaking with my effort to restrain myself. I really am trying not chuck it all and sob uncontrollably on my bed. My friends would understand.

Ever since that day in the hall I have been trying to make a decision about the ring. Throw it at her head and tell her to stinkin' deal with it, or send it back for a refund. I had been carrying it around in my pocket, and had been ever since I had bought it the month before. Today was the last day that the ring could be returned.

The ring was a white opal stone. I had considered diamonds or crystallized unicorn tears on a solidified rainbow ban but those seemed too common place for her. Lily was special.

I had had the entire evening planned out. I was going to have Sirius, Remus, and Peter walk her into Hogsmead on the next weekend. I would tell her that I would meet her there, I had some thing's that I needed to finish up. That would be true. They just wouldn't be school related things. I would fly into the town on my broom and after some hemming and some hawing she would agree to fly off with me.

It had taken Sirius and I a month or more to find the perfect spot. There was a small island that wasn't too terribly far from Hogwarts. About an hours fly away if you're making good time. After we found the location it took another couple of weeks to decide on how to set the scene. It was all we could talk about for months. And when the ring was finally in my possession it was a full-out Marauders adventure trying to decide on the _exact_ moment that the ring would look its best against the chosen setting.

And, after all of that we had to find a way to find out Lily's dress size since the most romantic night of her (our) life could not take place in the white jeans she wore all the time. And _then_ we had to find the right color dress. Something that would make the ring really pop. Something to make it impossible for her to say no. And the last piece of the puzzle was finding the perfect set of sheets, and transfiguring them so that they wouldn't be obvious, because naturally after agreeing to marry me Lily would want to shag my brains out. And here's something that they don't tell you in transfiguration class: no matter how much of a master you are, no matter how hard you try ,you can_not_ transfigure good sheets. They always take on the texture of the thing that you transfigured them from, so the thing to do was buy the best sheets in the world and transfigure them into rocks or something.

Perfect, right? And even more if perchance she said no then I could send her off on my broom by herself and by the time my friends found me again my suicide attempt would have proved successful. But the day, the stinkin' _day_ before P-Day, the day before Hogsmead she led me into the hall and handed me my heart on flambé.

I sat in Herbology, my eyes twitching this way and that. The ring was in my pocket, where it had been since I had bought the thing. I was looking for Lily. I still wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to chuck the ring at her head or throw myself at her feet and plead with her to take me back. Or maybe a combination of the two. Throw myself at her head and tell her to stinkin' deal with me. And let the ring smack her in the eye. I hadn't seen her since we broke up which really didn't make any sense. We had a lot of the same classes, so where was she? I looked at her typical spot towards the middle of the room. Herbology was one of the few classes that she didn't sit in the front row for. Her seat was empty, as it had been all week and the week before. Sirius inclined his head to a seat in the back and if I didn't know Lily down to her freakishly long blonde eyelashes then I wouldn't have recognized her. She was sitting in the very back of the room, her knees pulled up to her chest and a sweatshirt with the hood up over her head. The only visible aspect of her were her pale, pale ankles and the freakishly long eyelashes.

Without thinking of the consequences. I stood and stormed over to the girl. I pulled the hood from her head and forcibly lifted her face up to look at me, right at me. If she was going to do this to me the least she could do is look me in the damn eye. She looks worse than I do. And I've been drunk for the best part of the past two weeks. Something to file away and think about later.

My hands are clenching and unclenching and to someone not in my head it probably looks like I'm working not to work my hand into a fist and belt her one. Truth? I have no idea what to say to her. My heart hurts and I haven't slept for weeks and I want to know why she did this to me but I can't think of a single, solitary way to say that that won't cause even first years to start offering me tampons and cramp medicine because everything in my head sounds so damn _girly _and over dramatic.

"What do you want from me, huh?" She surged to her feet. Our heads smashed into one another's, but neither of us relinquished an inch. Her eyelashes tickle the tops of my cheeks and I just want to close the distance between our mouths and kiss her. _We were happy, damn it!_ Except that part had come out loud, and I yelled it right in her face and saliva had flown from my mouth and had landed on her lips and even my spit has missed her.

"Were, Potter. Past tense. Maybe you should move on." Or maybe she should, tears are in her eyes and I can feel the moisture on her freakishly long eyelashes as she tries to blink them away.

"Potter, Evans, OUT!" Professor Hedgerow kicked the two out, she had been content to let them fight out their issues, they needed to talk, but when the third student was sent to the nurses' office because they had been bitten, she had had no choice but to kick them out. They were dealing with Biting Bizmonkey, a rare plant, and those had poison running through them.

Lily and I were standing by the lake glaring at each other. To be more exact, Lily was glaring at the hand that had an iron grip on her elbow that had forced her to the lake. In this somewhat relative expanse of privacy the question that had been tormenting me for the past two weeks finally fell from my lips. "Why?" I stared hard into her eyes. "I love you Lily. We love each other." My voice cracked and tears that had been held so long in check finally spilt free.

"No you don't!" She broke free from me and ran as if Slughorn himself were chasing after her. She needn't have run so hard or so far, I was in no position to chase her. That tiny bit of hope that she had just given me had so thoroughly sapped me of strength it was a wonder that I was still standing. She had said 'no _you_ don't' not 'no _I_ don't.' And as long as the only thing standing between me and Lily and shagging on a deserted island while I call out "Mrs. Potter! Mrs. Potter!" was her belief of my indifference to her, then there really isn't anything standing between us at all.


	3. Chapter 3

"Lily?"

"Hm?" She turned the page of the textbook she was studying from.

"Lily, I need to tell you something."

"Mm-hmm." She underlined a passage and checked a line against her notes. Her brow furrowed.

"Are you listening?" James had taken one of her hands in his and was playing with her fingers. He loved her hands. Long and graceful, he liked to trace them. He enjoyed the feel of her skin against his even in something as innocent as hand holding.

"Mh-hmm." She sipped from her mug of pumpkin juice.

"Lily. I'm in love with you." She choked. The mouth full of juice spewed over her books, and the little that had made it to her throat was burning as she alternately coughed and took deep breaths to dislodge it.

"What? What?" She was forcing deep breaths into her lungs. "Say what now, huh?" Her textbook was forgotten and she focused all of her attention on her boyfriend of one month. James said nothing. He continued to stare down at her hand, tracing his finger tips over the pads. The innocent movement sent chills up and down her spine. "James?" Maybe she had imagined it. When he said nothing more, choosing instead to pull his own text to him and begin studying Lily felt forced to do the same.

A simple drying spell had rid the book of the spit liquid, but Lily could no longer concentrate on her school work. He had said that he loved her. So simply, like it was the easiest thing in the world. She couldn't keep herself from staring at the side of his head. Willing him to say something else. She didn't love him, of course not. They had dated for a month and she had only admitted to herself that she did indeed not hate him over the past summer and had not owned up to liking him until the middle of their first date. She wasn't in love. Is that why he hadn't said anything? He was expecting her to say something back? Was she supposed to lie to him? She could love James Potter. She most probably would love James Potter. In fact, if she were to examine how she felt about him a bit closer she would see that she was in the early stages of love right at that moment. But how do you say that to your boyfriend of one month? 'I don't not love you, but umm. Ask me again in a month?' She felt hot and sweaty. For the first time since the first time James had asked if he could hold her hand and she said yes, she wanted to slip her hand away and wipe off excess moisture.

Suddenly, he turned and stared into her startled eyes. "I can't concentrate with you looking at me like that." He let go of her hand and put his hand on the small of her back. He lightly pushed her towards himself and kissed her before standing and gathering his things. "Love you!" He called behind him as he moved to leave the book stacks the two of them had been studying behind. Lily had sat there. Flushed, excited and looking forward to the day she could say those words, in all honesty, back to him.

Lily was bewildered. She had walked into the library to get some studying done for the Transfiguration portion of her N.E.W.T.s done when out of the corner of her eye she had heard her name. It had sounded like James, but ever since Herbology last week her one sided avoidance of him became mutual, so him calling her name was not something that she should be hearing. She headed towards the sound and stepped into a memory. She didn't know why but all day she had been seeing things. Not just anything, but things that looked….well, looked like the inside of her own head. Her memories of important moments that she had had with James were following her as if she had fallen into his penseive and he was forcing her to remember their good times. Or, since that was unlikely, she had her very own set of Lily and James look a likes who had taken it upon themselves to act out milestones in Lily and James relationship. Thus far that day she had witnessed herself agree to go on a date with James, and his reaction after she had left. After she had left he had danced. Full out in the middle of the great hall, arms were flailing, hips were thrusting and he was twirling. Professor McGonagal had spotted him, and when he told her the reason why he danced, she danced with him. James Potter and Professor Minerva McGonagal, Deputy Headmisstress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry waltzed in the middle of the great hall in the middle of the night. It was a sight. Lily had seen her first kiss with James, and felt the punch of it all over again. They had been outside. She had been so nervous that she couldn't stop batting her eyes. Her lashes were brushing against his cheeks and he had been laughing. He had laughed so hard that he had fallen against her and accidentally bit her nose. Lily had jerked away from him, smartly rapping the top of her head with the tip of his chin and James had fallen on his bum in front of her. Neither of them could hardly breathe for laughing but when she had leant down to help him up all laughter stopped. When she had bent over he had gripped his hands around her shirt collar and barely lifting himself up he had fixed his lips to hers.

She had seen herself get ready for their date just moments ago up in her dorm before she decided to leave. She had been so excited. And now this. Lily turned and walked away. She tried to remember all of the good times that she had had with her former boyfriend so that she wouldn't walk by where those good times had taken place. She really didn't need this. She didn't need to remember what a great boyfriend he had been when he had been her boyfriend. She was there. She knew. He was the one who had wanted to break up with her. Not the other way around. She just had the common sense to beat him to the punch. Having her heart broken by James Potter was unacceptable. She stopped as she saw herself enter a small area in front of a window that was covered by a large tapestry. James was nowhere in sight and Lily didn't remember this moment. Curiosity piqued she couldn't help but to follow herself in.

It was her, of course. She was pacing back and forth and muttering to herself.

"This is a bad idea Lily. Snap out of it. Just, just snap out of it. Ok. One. Two. Three, go!" She slammed her head into the wall. Then, with her head in her hands sunk to the ground.

"That. Did. Not. Work." She sighed. And just like that, Lily knew where that memory had come from. James and Sirius had been coming back from an impromptu trip to Hogsmeade. They had been laughing and Sirius had been teasing James over some woman who had apparently thrown herself at him. James hadn't been interested in the least. He hadn't mentioned Lily in some cheesy 'she's the girl for me' type speech to his best friend. Lily hadn't even been mentioned. It was at that moment exactly that Lily realized that she could tell James that she loved him and it wouldn't just be words. She wasn't jealous of the woman in Hogsmeade. She didn't want to go and give the woman a smack or two for attempting to lure James away. It wasn't that Lily was so confident of her relationship with James that she knew that they could survive anything that made Lily know that she was ready to tell him. The truth was she was terrified. She was terrified that the relationship wasn't going to work and that she was going to have her heart broken. That he was going to get up one day and look at her and ask himself why he had wasted years of his life waiting for her. And she was terrified that he wouldn't. That he was right. That they were perfect for each other. And she was terrified of too many things to put her finger on, things she didn't really understand. But, Lily had known in that moment that she would rather tell him than to not tell him. So, when he had come to find her hours later and she was in that same spot, sitting on the floor terrified of being in love with James Potter she gathered her Gryffindor courage around her and looked him straight in the chin and told him. After he came to her and kissed her breathless and whispered the words back to her she managed to tell him again. This time looking him in the eye.

Tears were in Lily's eyes as she left the embracing couple…apparition… memory….illusion behind her. "How could I have forgotten that?" No, she had not forgotten. She had blocked the memory out. She didn't know where to turn next. The school was haunting her. For once she wished that she had a marauders spirit so she could slip out of the castle for awhile. She needed peace that she just wouldn't find there. With her eyes closed, her fingers in her ears and tears running down her cheeks Lily turned and marched away from alcove. She had barely taken two steps when she bumped into someone.

James.

His eyes were blank when he looked down at her. Barely a flicker of emotion passed over his eyes as they traveled over her face. Without a word he handed her his handkerchief and made to move pass her.

Her hand snaked out and grabbed his sleeve. "Have you been seeing them too?" Her voice was hoarse and her eyes were red. James shook his arm free from her. "Seen what?"

"Nothing." If he had been seeing what she had been seeing he wouldn't be asking her what she had been seeing. She hurried away from him and right into another memory.

This one she was witnessing from above. It was the scene from the photograph that James had kept in his room. The snow was falling down and James and Lily and all of their friends had just burst outside to enjoy the first snow of the season.

"Snow ball fight. Snow ball fight. Snow ball fight!" Sirius and Peter were chanting and rhythmically stomping their feet.

"I'm not in the mood for fighting" Lily adjusted the huge hat on her head, trying to find a way to pull the excess fabric down over her freezing ears without ruining the shape of the hat. "Lets go sledding, that'll be fun."

"Yeah. Lets all sit on our butts in the snow and slide down more snow on a big icy hill. Fun." Sirius made a face and bent to begin his hoard of snowballs.

"Because throwing balls of snow is such a heat inducing activity that I need to take my cloak off when we play." Remus rolled his eyes. "James, why don't you decide?" The only time Remus liked the snow was when he was the wolf and had his fur to warm him.

"Boys, I think its going to be sledding today." Lily had whooped and thrown herself into his arms, his mouth was right there, so she kissed it. James had let out a whoop of his own and pulled her into a dance then and there. Lily saw that it was Alice who had had the camera and snapped the photograph. She had been too wrapped up in James at the time to notice. It was the first time that she had kissed him and not the other way around. It had been a good day. They had ultimately played a game of snowball tag on sleds. It was fun, plain and simple remember it for the rest of your life fun. Lily had never been so happy.

Lily turned and headed towards the entrance to the castle. She needed out. When she made it to the doors she was just in time to see herself coming up the staircase. Tears were in her eyes. She had just broken up with James. Resolutely, the real Lily kept going. She stopped when she saw two James Potters. One was from the night that they had broken up. He was….crying. Lily had known that he had been furious with her for dumping him. But she had assumed he was furious in the way people were furious for having their homework stolen or something. You worked hard at it, and someone stole the reward. The reward being Lily, or a good grade on an assignment. He was going to dump her. Why did it matter that she had done it first? Was he so upset that she had ruined his chance to publicly dump her in front of the school? The other James Potter, the real James Potter was standing, watching the spectacle as well. The illusion had curled himself in a ball and was….sobbing…was really the only word for it. Suddenly, he had stood and thrown something from him. James watched Lily as she turned to see what he had thrown. "It's a good thing I didn't give that to you after all." His voice was bitter. "You never loved me. I was a fool to think that you ever would." He turned to walk away from her before he suddenly, and violently, whipped back towards her. "Was it a game? Just answer me this. Was. It. A. Game?" His voice was hard with unleashed fury and tears.

"How could you ask me that?"

"How could you break my heart, Lily? I love you damn it!"

"And I don't love you?"

"Then why did you break up with me?"

"You were going to break up with me James, I couldn't handle that!"

"Does this look like I was about to break up with you?" He motioned to the scene still playing out behind him, but Lily's attention was focused on what was in his hand. A box.

"You were avoiding me. You acted like you didn't like being around me."

"I didn't like being around you! I needed to plan for the night that I was going to propose to you. I couldn't do that with you there." The word propose hang in the air between them. Lily mouthed the word silently to herself. "If I didn't see that then maybe we aren't ready for such a huge step."

"You don't think?" He rubbed his hands over suddenly tired eyes. "I figured that out for myself when I realized that you would rather throw me over than suffer a bit of a blow to your pride."

"I was right. It was a joke."

"I wasn't joking. You thought I was. I wasn't. The fact that you thought that I would play a joke like this on you shows that we're not ready."

"I…" She didn't know what to say. She loved him. She thought. But, if she really had, real love that could last the war and the world and not being in school anymore really love him then she wouldn't think those things about him. Those thoughts belonged to the young James Potter not the man that she could maybe see herself spending the rest of her life with. "I didn't want to get hurt. It was more than just I didn't want to be pranked."

"Well, we both got hurt, didn't we?"

"It wouldn't hurt so much if we didn't like each other so much, right?"

"I love you, Lily. Love. Not like." He rubbed his hands over his face again.

"Do you love me enough to give me another chance? A chance to catch up to you?" She stood there, the pride she hadn't been willing to risk on the floor next to the ring that the illusion James hadn't retrieved yet.

"Yeah. I do."

"Keep the ring, James. I'm going to be ready for it one day." That night James moved back into the Heads tower. He and Lily spent the night on the couch in their shared common room, talking and kissing. She was ready before the year had ended.

Meanwhile, in the 7th year boy's dorms….

Lily Evans was sitting on Peter Pettigrew's bed and Sirius Blacks bed. Professor McGonagal was sitting on Remus Lupin's bed.

"So," Professor McGonagal intoned looking around her at the two Lily Evans. "Do either of you have anything to say to for yourselves?"

The Lily on Peter's bed rose his hand timidly in the air, only to be shot down by a forcefully thrown pair of socks. "Two questions. First, how'd we pull this off with no James? And two, how'd you get to be Minnie?" Unfortunately, those two questions were not destined to be answered. Needless to say, the Marauders minus one did indeed come up with a plan to get their depressed friend back together with the love of his life and they more than likely helped but, as always, when concocting a mixture of Marauders and polyjuice potion in the time it takes said potion to brew some wires have to get crossed….

Brief Explination: Oh, I feel the need to explain because I dont think I did very well with the transition from last chapter to this...The Maruaders were trying to help James and they came up with the idea to re-enact fond memories of the couple. James knew what his friends were up to, so the James Potter that Lily was seeing up until the last memory was him, and the last memory the break up that they watch together...an image of himself that he created. I'm really not sure if it made the best of sense and it certainly didnt transition smoothly but the determined James of last chapter and the morose James of this one is the same James. Who knew he was such an actor?

_Authors Note:so…friends. Long time no see. Oh, don't be mad or something at me. The only excuse I can offer you is this: moving is bad. And also, I don't particularly like this chapter. I mean I do but I don't. I hope y'all do anyhow. I tried to rewrite it but it just kept coming back to this. Oh, and I want you to know that this, all but the impromptu final paragraphs have been beta'd. whether or not this particular version is actually the version that made it to semi-crazy is a whole other something to be pondered at length later. But, a shout out to her is in order so, SEMI-CRAZY woot! That'll do. _

_Lata isa_


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